em in a bold
stroke for freedom. As in the previous attempt they were discovered,
many arrested and several of the ringleaders executed.[7-42]

Neither the merchants nor the planters seem to have been conscious of
any wrong in the seizure and sale of negroes. They regarded the native
Africans as hardly human, mere savages that were no more deserving of
consideration than oxen or horses. And as it was right and proper to
hitch the ox or the horse to the plow, so it was equally legitimate to
put the negro to work in the fields of sugar cane or tobacco. Whatever
hardships he had to endure upon the voyage to America or by reason of
his enforced labor, they considered amply compensated by his conversion
to Christianity.

It is true that the colony of Virginia early in the Eighteenth century
imposed a heavy duty upon the importation of slaves, but it did so
neither from any consciousness of wrong in slavery itself or a
perception of the social problems which were to grow out of it. At the
time the price of tobacco was declining rapidly and many planters were
losing money. Feeling that their misfortunes arose from overproduction,
which in turn was the result of the recent purchases of negroes, the
colonial legislators decided to check the trade. "The great number of
negroes imported here and solely employed in making tobacco," wrote
Governor Spotswood in 1711, "hath produced for some years past an
increase in tobacco far disproportionate to the consumption of it ...
and consequently lowered the price of it."[7-43] "The people of Virginia
will not now be so fond of purchasing negroes as of late," declared
President Jennings of the Virginia Council in 1708, "being sensibly
convinced of their error, which has in a manner ruined the credit of the
country."[7-44]

During the years from 1680 to 1700 slaves arrived in the colony in
increasing numbers. In 1681 William Fitzhugh, in a letter to Ralph
Wormeley, refers to the fact that several slave ships were expected that
year in the York river.[7-45] At this period, for the first time in
Virginia history, we find negroes in large numbers entered as headrights
upon the patent rolls. In 1693 Captain John Storey received a grant of
land for the importation of 79 negroes, in 1694 Robert Beverley brought
in seventy, in 1695 William Randolph twenty-five.[7-46] Before the end
of the century it is probable that the slaves in Virginia numbered
nearly 6,000, and had already become more import